In January 2008 at the CES show Foxconn demonstrated for the first time a new Quantum Force mainboard on Intel X48 Express also known as Foxconn BlackOps. Today we are going to take a closer look at this unique product in our new review!

So, we decided to install another brand name utility called FOX LiveUpdate that should help find any available updates.

Once installed, the selfish FOX LiveUpdate utility rushes online to find updates for itself and then a window pops up with a not very convincing suggestion to update:

Ok, we agree and wait for new FOX LiveUpdate version to download.

By the way, FOX LiveUpdate not only took liberties with us and went right for the Net without even asking, it created a new folder on drive C where it downloaded all the new updates. Will it clean everything up afterwards? We’ll see…

The download is complete and FOX LiveUpdate asks if we would like to update immediately:

We agree to install, but FOX LiveUpdate warns us that the previous version will be removed. We agree once again, the old version of the utility is successfully removed and an Installation Wizard window pops up saying that everything is complete. Wait a second! And who will now install a new version? We launch the installation file once again, but FOX LiveUpdate immediately informs us that everything has already been installed…

Good that we noticed that ne folder, where FOX LiveUpdate downloaded all the updates. Installation file is a regular self-extracting archive. We extract the files manually, launch Setup.exe and finally get the latest operational version of FOX LiveUpdate utility.

In fact, despite modest looks, FOX LiveUpdate boasts very good theoretical functionality. At least, it is way better than a similar tool from MSI that works only in online mode. And here we can check the current BIOS version, save the old one or update with an existing local version. Or we could go online and find an even newer BIOS update, latest drivers or utilities or all of the above at the same time.

We don’t need the drivers, we updated the BIOS from a flash drive without the unpredictable FOX LiveUpdate utility. That is why we will be looking only for the new programs. Although the info-window of FOX LiveUpdate claims that we run AEGIS Panel version 1.0.2.18, while the main AEGIS Panel window reads version 1.0.2.17, but that’s a trifle, really.

FOX LiveUpdate couldn’t find a newer AEGIS Panel version, but it found FOX ONE instead.

We already know about this utility from our review of a budget Foxconn P35AX-S solution. FOX ONE utility turned out not quite ideal, but it made a very good overall impression. At least, we liked it much more than AEGIS Panel. So, we agree to download it and wait for a long time for 15MB to download to our system at about 15KB/s. Once done, we proceed to install, but get an error message: it turned out that FOX ONE utility doesn’t support Foxconn BlaskOps mainboard. Looks like FOX LiveUpdate once again misled us.

Unfortunately, we have to conclude that both Foxconn’s brand name utilities are not quite satisfactory as of today. Well, software turned out not that good, hopefully, the board will make up for it.